Tag Archives: Austin Mitchell

McKENZIE SUCCESS: Permission to Appeal an Adoption Order GRANTED

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It was only thanks to a major team effort that this could happen today:

And then:

  1. travelling to the mother whose two daughters were taken by… I shall refrain from naming and shaming the Council for now; they know who they are…
  2. submitting an Application for Contact (form C100 – obtainable from your local court or online here!!!)
  3. digging into her life story and building trust – despite all her bad experiences
  4. attending a ‘Directions’ hearing in the Royal Courts of Justice
  5. reminding Social Services to comply to the order made
  6. learning to use Google docs to co-author a ‘skeleton argument and amended grounds for appeal’ and submit it in time
  7. getting ready for a hearing about the Permission to Appeal
  8. visiting Social Services who had not complied to the Order
  9. producing a ‘Position Statement’ – just in case – for ‘the other side’ were going to produce something…
  10. submitting the McKenzie CV and asking for ‘right of audience’ which was granted. [Since it's up to the discretion of the judge, one never knows...]

The mother came out crying with, I presume a mix of joy and relief, for “she got it”: the permission to appeal. The Appeal will be heard in nearly 3 months: in May 2013.

The key is the precedent case made by Judge Munby, the current President of the Family Division who had said [para 44, iv]

to take a baby at birth is a dreadful thing: dreadful for the father, the mother and the baby…

It refers to this case in the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg which emphasised at paras [116], [131], [133],

that the removal of a child from his mother at or shortly after birth is a “draconian” and “extremely harsh” measure, requiring “exceptional justification” and “extraordinarily compelling reasons” under Article 8.

PS. Our meeting with Austin Mitchell MP in the afternoon is on this blog post.

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Association of McKenzie Friends launched with Austin Mitchell MP and John Hemming MP

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On the occasion of the world wide peaceful protest against child abuse, we met

  • in the morning with Austin Mitchell MP who talked about the ‘Legal Mafia’ in the Telegraph in 2001
  • in the afternoon to demo on the Parliamentary Green
  • in the evening with John Hemming MP who answered all the questions we put before him.

His plans are a Parliamentary Inquiry. The more mainstream media we can manage to achieve, the better we can demonstrate that there is a need for Parliament to look into our issues. Thanks to Brad Meyer who publishes Help 4 Litigants in Person, here is the first of 10 video parts to share the discussion:

All 10 videos are on http://www.youtube.com/user/EDM1297

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